~ a blog for Tourists, Expats and Locals

la noche de los museos

One night a year the musea, and a few buildings that are usually not open for public, open their doors. One of those buildings is the Congreso. The big static building on the plaza de congreso, at the end of ave de Mayo.

In 1895 28 architect from all over the world participated in a contest to design the new congreso, it was Victor Meano (an Italian living in Argentina) whose design won. Construction started in 1898, and although they started using it in 1906, it was only finished completely in 1945!

It is a big impressive building that always attracts your attention when you pass it, but never open to the public, exept this night. We were not the only ones wanting to get in : we were told that the waiting lines are usually very long but go fast, so we were prepaired.

It always amazes me how disciplined the Argentines are when it comes to waiting in lines. They just go to the back of the lane and wait… no pushing, trying to get ahead of others. They just wait. And drink mate. Eventhough the lines were huge, we got into the building only 10 minutes later.

It seems they made a lot of effort to make this night succesfull, there were concerts (a choir, a singer, dancers) they handed over leaflets with information. It was really interested to see!

Unfortunately, for those who missed it, you must wait another year to go take a look inside, but I will add a few picuters here to share with you.